


Bestseller

by sansybones, withtheworms



Series: Rehab Cabin DLC [11]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, post-pacifist end, rehab cabin DLC, talk about Resets (sorta)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 00:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7780663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansybones/pseuds/sansybones, https://archiveofourown.org/users/withtheworms/pseuds/withtheworms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Rehab Cabin DLC fic by @withtheworms</p><p>Set post-Pacifist ending, with monsters now living among humans on the surface.  6 years after the Skeleton brothers relocate to a remote cabin to help Sans work on getting better (and a few months after the events of Gather 'Round The Bonefire), Alphys publishes a history(/tell-all) book about the life of monsters in the Underground, and Sans and Papyrus get an advanced copy.  </p><p>It goes over just about as well as you’d expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bestseller

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Rehab Cabin DLC fic/au/extended headcanon by myself and SansyBones. In a nutshell: Resets messed Sans up beyond repair and he has no concept of chronological time. Things get bad before they get better, but nothing's ever really "okay." It's sad! Anyway, there's (lots) more here: http://rehabcabin.tumblr.com/
> 
> This is actually part two, part 1 of Bestseller is illustrated and you can read it [right here](http://rehabcabin.tumblr.com/post/143542470487/so-anyway-weve-been-talking-about-alphys) on tumblr dot com.

Early morning sunlight, having just cleared the tree-tops, and unmarred by any clouds in the sky, slanted in through the east-facing windows of the cabin, throwing long shadows across the hardwood floor.  

The bottom three stairs creaked as Papyrus padded down them, balancing his phone and tablet in one hand, and an empty glass from the previous evening in the other.  He hadn’t bothered dressing yet, still in his pyjamas as he placed the dirty glass in the small sink and crossed the ground floor of the cabin to open the front door and let Sans’ dog out.  She’d slept upstairs with him, which (annoyingly) was becoming more and more common.  He’d considered finding a way to put an end to it, but had to admit that there was something comforting about the company of the ball of white fluff.  He was reluctantly starting see why Sans liked her so much.  

He was so absorbed in his own thoughts– dealing with the dog and planning the start of his day– that he didn’t see the book thrown on the ground until he tripped over it, catching a hand against the wall to stop himself as he stumbled and noticing (finally) the small skeleton curled up on the couch.

Sans hadn’t moved from where he’d been sitting the previous evening when Papyrus had said goodnight to him.  Still wearing the same clothes, his knees pulled up to his chest, face buried in his hands.  

“So you finished it, then…”

Without taking his eyes off his brother, Papyrus knelt down and picked up the book– Alphys’ book– smoothing it out in his hands.  It had evidently been thrown with some force, and a good third of the pages were now creased and bent at mismatched angles.  The cover looked like someone had tried to crumple it, half of the glossy title ripped away from the spine.

Alphys’ book had come to them only three days before.   _Determination: Never Losing Hope_ by Dr. Alphys, a history of the life of monsters in the Underground.  Papyrus had picked it up from the post office in town- an advanced copy for he and Sans to share, carefully packed in a padded envelope along with a lengthy handwritten note from Alphys, thanking them for all their help and wishing them both well- and brought it home.  He’d read the entire thing cover to cover immediately, though Sans had taken an additional day and a half to brace himself for it.  

“What did you think?”

Sans hadn’t moved.  Hadn’t even stirred to acknowledge Papyrus’ presence, though at his brother’s question he managed to produce a small, muffled laugh that had absolutely no mirth in it.

“Everyone’s story is in there, you know…” Papyrus had rehearsed this part of the conversation, having known from the first line on the first page of the book that this would be the inevitable fallout. “Every other monster… they’re going to be so focused on what part _they_ played, they’re not going to really focus on… on your part of it.”

 _It._  

The word hung unsaid in the air between them, not forbidden, per say, but not easily or readily said.

Resets.

Sans remained silent.

“Are you mad?”

It was perhaps not the right thing to ask in that moment, and like spark to a tinderbox the question brought forth an eruption of words from the smaller skeleton.

“Mad? Why would I be mad? _How_ could I be mad?” His voice was edged and raw, cracking on certain syllables. “Because it’s not enough that everything worked out okay for _her_ , in the end, so now she gets to air the… the _skeletons_ in all of our collective closets.  It’s not enough they all get their perfect happy ending and meanwhile we’re _alone_ out here.  And what am _I_ doing? They’re all accomplishing, they’re all _doing_ things.  Everything’s moving forward and it doesn’t roll back and I’m…” he broke off abruptly, whatever had entered him leaving just as quickly as it had come.

Papyrus sat down on the couch and without hesitating put his hand on his brother’s shoulder.  Sans leaned into the touch immediately, folding himself against Papyrus’ side, his voice muffled from behind the bones of his palms.

“Now everybody’s going to know about it.”

Realistically the book didn’t go into much detail on the true nature of Resets, and it omitted the entirety of the worst timelines.  It had been a decision made for Frisk’s sake, in order to protect them, and, to a lesser degree, to protect Sans as well.  All told, Sans’ role in Alphys’ precise, albeit slightly biased, history amounted to six pages of generous half-truths.  He’d become the fulcrum to the Resets: aware of them, integral, but cosmically unimportant compared to the forces he was balancing.  And– the sticking point in all this– absolutely powerless to do anything about them.

Papyrus made a half-shrugging motion, maintaining a note of optimism in his voice while still aware of how difficult this was for his brother.

“Most monsters had a hunch, I think.  I mean…” he shrugged again, gesturing to the cabin. “There’s a reason we’re here.”

Sans made a strangled noise before finally dropping his hands into his lap.  He looked… awful.  Old, and tired, and fragile, and sad.   

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” he said at last, his voice quiet and defeated. “She called so many times, asked so many questions… She _told_ me she was writing it, she got everyone’s permission.” He trailed off, loosely flexing his hands as he stared down at them. “She just… everyone else– herself, King Asgore, Tori– everybody got to make decisions and then they had to live with the consequences.  I was-” he paused, making loose air quotes “-‘stuck’ in the re-… in _them_.” He bowed his head, rubbing the heel of his palm against one of his eye sockets. “She made me sound like such a _victim_.”

Papyrus tightened his arm around Sans, knowing there was nothing he could say to disperse the ghosts of past timelines dredged up by the book (ghosts he, admittedly, knew very little about).  They just had to ride this out and wait for the bad that was pulled up to settle back down.

Sans’ voice was hollow and barely a whisper.

“Why does it hurt so much, Paps?”

There was no point in saying it would hurt less in time.  Time was never going to work for Sans like it did for everyone else.  He could get ahold of days and months, maybe even (eventually) years, but the distance between him and the events of the Underground would never dilate any further.  The wounds would never scab over and go numb with age.

“It hurts because it happened,” his voice was gentle as he spoke. “And it hurts because it mattered.  And it hurts because they’re not going to understand it the way you do.” He paused, angling himself so Sans was forced to look at him and not fold further into himself. “But I believe you can get through this moment.  And I believe that after this moment is up, we can work on getting through the next one.”

Sans made a muffled noise that Papyrus knew from experience meant he was at least levelling out of the spiral he had been in.  It’d be days- weeks- before they could establish a new normal to recover from this, and Papyrus didn’t want to think about the hours of sleep Sans was going lose agonizing over those measly six pages, but this was the first step in a better direction.

“Do you think anyone’s going to read it?”

Papyrus grinned, nudging his brother gently. “I think she’s lucky _we_ read it.”   

“Heh,” Sans slid into the comfort of Papyrus’ lie easily, returning his grin with a shadow of a smile. “Maybe you’re right.”

Papyrus snickered, providing confidence to take over where Sans’ currently lacked.

“The Great Papyrus is _always_ right.”  


End file.
